Mashpee want details of talks between gaming commission, lawmakers

Attempting to thwart a potential move by the Gaming Commission to open the southeastern region to commercial casino developers, the Mashpee Wampanoag are demanding that commissioners disclose which lawmakers and consultants are providing them with advice.

By Matt Murphy

Wicked Local

By Matt Murphy

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 11, 2013 at 11:03 AM

By Matt Murphy

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 11, 2013 at 11:03 AM

BOSTON

» Social News

Attempting to thwart a potential move by the Gaming Commission to open the southeastern region to commercial casino developers, the Mashpee Wampanoag are demanding that commissioners disclose which lawmakers and consultants are providing them with advice.

The Gaming Commission is in the process of soliciting feedback about opening the southern gaming region to commercial bids, a move that would negate efforts to give the Mashpee tribe exclusive casino rights in the region and create the potential for four casinos in Massachusetts, instead of three.

The commission could make a decision next Thursday, and Gov. Deval Patrick said this week there are “a lot of reasons” to wait and give the tribe more time.

Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby, at a meeting last week, said he has spoken with legislators to gauge their intent when drafting the 2011 law and sees “little appetite” for further delay. Several lawmakers from the area have expressed concern that prolonged tribal gaming talks could leave the region behind in the casino era.

Commissioner Gayle Cameron also said during the meeting that she has spoken with consultants who informed her the Secretary of Interior’s decision on taking tribal land into federal trust for the Mashpee tribe is years away.

“We are now in a situation where the Massachusetts Gaming Commission seems to be substituting their own judgement as to what the landscape should look like with the number of casinos in Massachusetts,” said Howard Cooper, counsel to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and an attorney at Todd & Weld.

Cooper wrote a letter to Crosby last Friday insisting that the commission post online the names of the lawmakers and consultants spoken with by commissioners and the information they provided so that the tribe can adequately respond.

“For the commission to be basing its decision to substitute its own judgment on unnamed sources would be really contrary to any notion of transparency,” Cooper said.

Cooper said Crosby has not yet responded to his letter. A spokeswoman for the commission said it had received the letter, and the commission’s legal team was reviewing it.

Gov. Deval Patrick recently reached agreement with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe on a new gaming compact that would deliver 17 percent of the tribe’s casino revenue to the state, assuming the tribe operates one of three casinos in Massachusetts and has no competition in the Southeast region.

However, the tribe would owe the state nothing if another commercial casino opened in the region, and if it eventually succeeded in getting the federal government to approve land in-trust it could open a fourth casino without state approval.

The expanded gaming law signed by Patrick in late 2011 gave the Gaming Commission the authority to solicit commercial bids in the southeast if it determined that it was unlikely the tribe would be able to get land in-trust. Mashpee Wampanoag attorneys have also raised legal questions about whether the commission can open the region to bids given the pending land application with the Interior Department.

Page 2 of 2 - Patrick, during a radio appearance Tuesday, called it “very frustrating” that the Interior Department rejected the first compact negotiated with the tribe in what he described as an “irritating decision” that required the administration and the tribe to renegotiate a deal.

The governor said he understood why the commission felt a sense of impatience to begin soliciting bids in the southeast given the slow pace of licensing throughout the state.

“I think what the commission is expressing is what a lot of people are feeling. When are we going to get on it?” Patrick said to WGBH hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan.

Patrick, however, said “the sooner the better” that the Legislature to take up the new gaming compact, and indicated a preference to allow the tribe time to pursue its land options, not wanting ultimately to see four casinos in Massachusetts.

“The saturation in the region is not good. It’s not good for the state. It’s not good for the competitive private facilities. There’s a lot of reasons the Legislature should move this compact soon and the commission should wait, but I don’t get a vote,” Patrick said.